Learning how to improve meeting interactions to achieve meetings effectiveness and satisfaction
Avila, Aleister A.
:
2023-12
Abstract
Contemporary Leadership Advisors (CLA) is a consulting firm of behavioral scientists and business experts who help organizations develop leadership and organizational capabilities by offering services related to leadership development, organizational design, and most recently, meeting effectiveness. CLA developed ConvoLens, a web-based platform designed to improve meeting effectiveness and satisfaction. ConvoLens allows a facilitator to categorize behavioral interactions demonstrated in a meeting and deliver feedback to meeting participants. Then, the facilitator helps the team engage in team reflection to identify new ways of interacting to improve meeting effectiveness and satisfaction. However, CLA had not yet implemented ConvoLens with a team over a period of time and did not know whether ConvoLens worked as intended. Therefore, this project sought to assess ConvoLens’s effectiveness by implementing it with a real team that held five meetings in a six-week period. The following questions guided this project:
1. To what extent was ConvoLens implemented as designed?
2. To what extent did the use of ConvoLens lead to improved meeting interactions and meeting effectiveness and satisfaction?
3. What was the user experience with ConvoLens?
This project used a mixed method design. ConvoLens’s implementation was assessed through observations and memoing. User satisfaction and ConvoLens’s impact on meeting interactions and meeting effectiveness and satisfaction were assessed through the triangulation of data from surveys, team reflections, and interviews. Key findings include the following:
1. ConvoLens was implemented as designed.
2. Changes in meeting interactions can result from a variety of intervention and non-intervention mechanisms.
3. About 86% of meeting effectiveness and satisfaction ratings were moderately to highly influenced by meeting interactions.
4. Meeting design and participation factors also influenced meeting effectiveness and satisfaction.
5. Group feedback and perceived need for intervention influenced users’ satisfaction with ConvoLens.
Based on these findings and the literature, recommendations centered around ConvoLens’s design and implementation. Recommendations included assessing meeting practices prior to the intervention to ensure interaction and non-interaction factors are addressed; ensuring feedback source is regarded as easy to understand, credible, and objective; promoting effective participation, decision making, and planning in team reflections; and implementing ConvoLens based on the team’s needs.